, 1887-05-19

with head Of IGNATIuS DoNNELLY
blonde hair, which grows thick and
Is generally worn q trihe longer than
the regulation style. In height he is
almost 5 feet z inches and weighs,
I should think, 24O pounds. He is
well preserved, and in reality don't appear to
be much over 40 years of age. His wife is
pleasant faced lady, who resembles her hus-
band in many respects She is a remarkably
fine musician and devout Roman Catholic,
but In these two respects is very unlike her
superbly educated husband, who is neither
They have three children. The oldest, Igna-
titus, Jr., is a doctor and practices in st.
Paul. The youngest is lawyer and the
other child is a married daughter, and she re-
sides in St. Louis
Mr.. Donnelly is we'll known as a politician.
He was formerly Republican, but is now a
Democrat. During the war he was governor
OF Minnesota for n time, and later was lieu
tenant governor for four years. He has
served in the state senate Ave years, subse-
quently representing Minnesota in congress
for period OF six years. Mr.. Donnellys ad-
mirers boastfully refer to the fact that he
spoke on straight stretch in congress once
for six mortal hours. He is brilliant
speaker, and Is one OF the most pleasing and
entertaining stump orators in the west. His
command of the English language Is remark
able, and his repartee is as bright as flash of
lightning Once when he was delivering a
powerful political peroration some one def
antly hurled head Of cabbage at him. He
paused q second and said: "Gentlemen, / only
asked your ears; don't care for your headsln
He was not bothered any further during the
remainder of his speech.
Mr.. Donnelly's library Is the finest In the
state. In addition to the ordinary books OF a
fine library he has collected great many
curious things in the preparation of his diff
ferent works He has been working almost
steadily on his Bacon cipher for five or six
years. In speaking of this work he said to
me: II can assure you that the Bacon cipher
in the Shakespeare plays is reality, aud will
be demonstrated To be such within a short
time am working steadily at it--elaborat-
ing by a rule coherent and intensely inter-
esting narrative. l feel sure Of having the
story ready for the printers by July at the
latest" In explanation of Mr.. Donnelly's re-
marks 1t Is necessary to give an outline of
what he proposes to do. He claims to have
discovered cipher in the Shakespeare plays
which prove that they were written by Sir
Francis Bacon, and says the publication of
his book will stamp Bacon the one conspicu-
ous figure OF mankind.
Five years ago Mr.. Donnelly began un-
raveling the mystery Of the ciphern He
pSssSoo - phoeoBiophi Sopy " Suo very
earliest folio edition Of the Bhakesperiai,
plays, which was issued seven years after the
death OF Shakespeare, or about the year 1923.
He has almost worn out the book which he
has pored over for no long a time. Mr.. Don.
nelly Is convinced that the main principle of
the mystic cipher" is based upon the paging
Of the 1923 edition. The cipher story, he
claims, was written by Bacon, intelligently
skeletonized, and the plays were written to
I'LL in" as it Were He thinks the way the
work was done was marvellous, and that his
elaboration will mark Bacon's work as one OF
the wonders of the world.
The collection on different pages OF the
words "Francis," "Bacon,, nicholas" aba
cons son. etc. Henry the Fourth. act H.
scenes 1, 9, T. for instance) first satisfied him
that there was some cipher behind it all, and
his investigations proved that these occur
rences were unparalleled in any other work
and could not be mere condolences He was
further convinced that there was some hidden
story in the text of the plays by the repeated
occurrences of "St Albans," the country
home of Bacon, Of "Gray's inn," where Ba-
con had bis lodgings, and the fact that STRAIT
ford, the home of Shakespeare, was nowhere
mentioned. After long and patient investi-
cation Mr.. Donnelly discovered, OH counting
the words on each page, that they were the
multiples of the pages on which they were
found. To illustrate, Mr.. Donnelly discovered
that.
Page 81. Henry the Fourth, SO times 7s-311,
and the 371st word is no other than Bacon.
Page 80, Henry the Fourth, 81 times 4-sai
and the a2ith word il Francis.
Page 81, Henry the Fourth, 81 times IL -Gis,
and the 6isth word is Nicholas
And so on to an indefinite and intcrminable
extent. Many other significant words proved
invariably to be the multiples of the onpes on
which they appeared. Mr.. Donnely is
Systematically unraveling the ''cipher mys-
terry" and he has had large sheets of paper
specially ruled to order on which he is work.
ing out coherent narrative. Each page con-
tains two columns of words, and is the result
of arithmetical calculations based ON the
'cipher." Every word in these columns is
derived primarily from the same root and in
EXPLAINING the system Mr.. Donnelly used